She made Gotye somebody we all know

Melbourne filmmaker Natasha Pincus, who made the music video for Goyte's Somebody That I Used to Know, which has been viewed on YouTube more than 170 million times.
Photo: Craig Sillitoe

SOMETIMES you just know. Melbourne filmmaker Natasha Pincus felt that serendipity the first time she heard Gotye's now chart-topping hit Somebody That I Used to Know.

''[The idea for the clip] came on the first listen. My heart dropped. I thought, this is going to be massive, this is an amazing song,'' Pincus said.

Her instincts were pitch perfect.

The song is now No. 1 on the US charts and has topped the pops in more than a dozen countries. The video is sprinting towards 200 million views on YouTube. It's already hit 171 million and is clocking about 2 million views a day. By the time you've read this article, 10,000 more people will have seen it. The distinctive clip - in which Gotye, whose real name is Wally De Backer, and New Zealand chanteuse Kimbra perform naked while, through stop-motion technology, they are gradually coated in body paint - is now the world's No. 1 music video on YouTube, the most viewed Australian video ever and likely the most popular independent music video in history.

Pincus directed and produced it in a Richmond studio on a shoestring budget in three frantic days, which ended with a 26-hour marathon.

Gotye funded the video, and the distinctive imagery that appears on the singers' bodies was taken from a painting by his father, Frank.

The singer has credited the clip for helping to make his song such a success. In what ultimately proved a brilliant stroke of luck, the video was leaked before Gotye intended to release it and went viral immediately.

''It was stolen out of our system. I guess it's always wanted to get out there. Within five minutes it was everywhere,'' Pincus says.

It has since won a swag of awards, become an internet meme after being promoted on Twitter by Ashton Kutcher and Katy Perry, and spawned scores of parodies, including on US show Saturday Night Live.

Pincus, who lives in Elwood, is now fielding offers from Los Angeles, taking calls from New York, and recently returned from Austin, Texas, where she attended the South by Southwest international music expo, at which the clip was nominated for an award. The day we speak she has just finished an interview with US cable network VH1.

It's not a bad result for a tiny operation like Pincus' company Starkraving Productions. ''It's a two-person operation - me and my cat,'' she says.

Pincus, a former lawyer, says her true passion is making full-length films. But when an artist she respected came along with a great song she couldn't resist. ''I'm not in it for the money and doing video clips, they're kind of love projects. You've got to love the artist and love the song,'' she says.

She is now shooting a video for Missy Higgins, and hopes the exposure she's had with Gotye might lead to collaborations with other artists she admires. ''Bring on Radiohead, I say.''